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Democracy Key to Sustainable Development

Democracy, along with favorable political and economic conditions, is a prerequisite for sustainable development, the Majlis speaker said.
"There is no doubt that sustainable development comes with the three elements of political stability, democracy and balanced economic growth," Ali Larijani said.
He was speaking at the Fourth World Conference of Parliament Speakers, convened by the Geneva-based Inter-Parliamentary Union at the UN headquarters in New York on Monday.
Larijani expressed regret that "the logic that prevails in practical politics on the ground is that of force not the one found in the beautiful and theoretically correct debates of conferences."
"Therefore, as long as such a paradox persists, people of the world will continue to suffer from violence, wars and displacement."
He lamented that some unnamed countries back tyrannical regimes that bring great suffering to their people, ICANA reported.
"There are certain governments that seem to favor democracy for their own people only and support dictatorships and despotic and violent regimes lying outside their borders."
He noted that promoting democracy has been abused as a pretext to create conflicts and wage war, as a result of which many people, including the Palestinians, have suffered.
"The theory of warmongering under the pretext of promoting democracy has resulted in an inappropriate behavior internationally. Actually, there are some governments that are trying to impose democracy in other countries with bombs and machine guns."
"The afore-mentioned reality has led to several wars in the world today like the doleful pain of the oppressed people of Palestine and the military atrocities of the Zionist regime in my region as well as the occupation and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan or the war in Yemen and armed conflicts in Syria," Larijani said.
Parliaments should assume a bigger role to help promote democracy and peace, the senior lawmaker said, stressing that "we the parliamentarians need to try harder if we really want democracy to be placed at the disposal of peace and development."